Being the reviews and ramblings of an incurable narcissist with too much time on his hands.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Review: Snow White and the Huntsman

For some reason, Snow White is
everywhere in the popular culture. There was a comedy movie earlier
in the year called Mirror, Mirror
which by all accounts was pretty terrible. There's a fairly popular
tv series, Once Upon a Time.
There was even supposedly a martial arts version of it slated for
release later this year, but it got scrapped. This can probably be
attributed to people finally figuring out that you can make a billion
dollars aiming fantasy fiction at women (which might be the one
lasting good thing that Twilight
did).

As for
the plot of this one, it essentially reads like all the big moments
that everyone knows from the Snow White story (or rather, the Disney
version that everyone remembers) reimagined as a somewhat lackluster
episode of Game of Thrones.
And while I can't really dislike it, it's unremarkable and average
enough that I can't think of a hell of a lot to say about it.

If
there's a reason to see this movie, it's the striking visual design.
The film is full of unique and interesting interpretations of fairy
tale concepts. The stuff you've seen in the trailers is nice, but it
really hits it's stride towards the middle and end. In particular are
some really unique monsters the villain summons in the later scenes
and a nice sequence towards the middle. Combined with some okay fight
scenes and good cinematography and music, and there's a lot of good
on the technical side of this film.

The
acting is mixed. Charlize Theron as the Queen is the big standout, as
she's always at her best in a villain or at least villain-esque role.
She spends most of the movie hanging around her castle roaring and
shrieking at her foot soldiers. She also has the most interest of any
of the characters, with a nifty backstory that ties heavily into the
broader symbolism of the Snow White legend. Kristen Stewart does
alright, but she essentially lacks a proper character. The Dwarves
are pretty good (played by an EMBARASSING number of famous character
actors) but the movie can't find a whole lot for them to do. The
Prince and the Huntsman are okay but...oh yeah, the Prince is in
this. No really. I know he's not been in the advertising much. Or at
all. He actually technically shows up before the Huntsman and has a
more interesting character. I think the Huntsman got shoved to the
front because he's played by Thor.

That's
really one of the larger issues of this film: You can read far too
much where it's getting it's inspirations. A lot of the
cinematography techniques are straight out of the Lord of
the Rings, there's a hacky love
triangle right out of the Twilight
movies, the visual scheme is right out of Game of Thrones,
the Prince mostly hangs around acting like Robin Hood,
the middle 3rd
is pretty much straight out of Princess Mononoke.
None of it's exactly deal breaking, but it does get bothersome
eventually.

The
movie has other issues, like a weak screenplay and mostly boring
characters, which keep me from recommending it outright. It's
probably better than a lot of other female targeted fantasy movies,
like Twilight or Red
Riding Hood which means they
might be getting how to make these movies better, but that's far from
saying it's good. Unless you're really into this kind of movie, you can probably ignore it.

Elessar
is a 22 year old Alaskan born cinephile and he always finds it
annoying how lead characters in fantasy movies never put on helmets.

2 comments:

As a costuming point, I haven't seen the film but noticed that the lead actress wears gender neutral armor. Seriously the only thing stranger than leads never wearing helmets is lead females never wearing a cuiras or adequate body armor.